[M]emory politics are by definition political and shift accordingly. There was a time when both the South Korean left and North Korea were more inter… - Brian Reynolds Myers

It all comes down to what neither the softliners nor the hardliners want to acknowledge: this is a successful right-wing state, not a failed communist one.

While watching Moon and Kim disport themselves on Mount Paektu — the modern nationalist myth of the ancient iconicity of which mountain our media swallowed hook, line and sinker — I was struck by a sobering thought: It has already become easier to imagine Seoul with a Kim Il Sung statue than to imagine Pyongyang without one. Not a lot easier, but easier. We may all disagree about what exactly a North-South league will mean, or even whether it will come to pass. But let’s stop the denials — the old-fashioned denials — that this is what the two Koreas are working on.

[T]he main threat to the South's security is the general lack of public identification with the ROK and its values, as opposed to any widespread vulnerability to the personality cult.